I want to explain my problem with H1 tags.

Does it matter to me rather you use them or not?

Not At All, I Could Care Less.

But there are SEO’s out there making a living fixing Meta keyword tags, submitting sites to the search engines and adding header tags to pages.

I have to wonder when the last time any of those added one visitor to a website.
Yet they are the backbone to many SEO firms.

The SEO industry as a whole has gotten a bad name from SEO’s posting information on forums that’s outdated and no longer works or has never worked. And then others or the same SEO’s taking that information and selling it to clients as a service.

I’ve worked on many sites and have added and removed more header tags then I care to talk about, or for that fact could even try and remember. And I can honestly say that not one site visitor was added or lost from removing or adding header tags.

Header tags don’t make a difference when it comes to search engine rankings or at least on Google and at this moment they send more traffic than all the others combined.

I’ve never tested them on Yahoo or MSN so really have not got a clue about their affects on those search engines.

I want to start by saying anything I do to my website, that can be physically seen is done so for the site visitors. I would never put search engine rankings or search engine manipulation above what a site visitor would see.

After all, it doesn’t matter how many visitors we can get to our websites, if the website want convert them it want matter.
With that being said I would also like to say that the search engines are changing daily, therefore just because something works today doesn’t mean that it will work tomorrow.

I do use header tags on my websites, but it has nothing to do with the search engines. I use them so I can control the size and look of the text in different parts of my sites.

I have tested the use of header tags and have not seen them affect the ranking of a website in the last year or more. I know that many SEO’s still preach the use of header tags, but something’s never change in their minds.

Quality Web Designs

Quality is one of those words you hear used a lot when someone is describing their services or products. And I’ve heard it used a lot in the web design industry.

I believe that there has to be a third person in the designing of a website to make it a quality website. You have your web designers, your programmers and then you have your quality control guy/gal.

I’ve got a client we design between 10 to 15 websites for every year. Once the graphical part of the website is approved he always says, “Okay, now I need the Janeth touch”.

The Janeth touch is where I or someone who works for me comes and looks the site over.
We look for things like;

1. Conversion; is there a call to action and does it look like it will convert the traffic? Does it stand out?

2. White Space; yes, one of the most important aspects to a quality website design is text that has enough white space that it makes me want to read it. I look throughout the design for the spacing within all the elements of the design.

You have look at the whole design, the big picture, and decide where you have too much and not enough white space.

3. Pixel Detail; when designing a website it’s important to understand how important it is to add a little shadow here or there to bring out the details in the design itself.

However, the correct use of shadows can also draw attention to certain areas of the page that you want a site visitor to take note of. Borders, lines and shadows don’t have to be huge to be affective.

4. Typography; Header tags need to be big, bold and lots of space while site content needs to be smaller but still using larger sized fonts because they help to create and open space.

And keep in mind that white space is very important.

If you want a truly great website, then remember, the Devil is in the details.